The Dilemma of Social Skills Therapy Part 2: Adolescence
This one has taken me a long time to think over and eventually write. Part 2: Adolescence is less kind than Part 1: The Young Child. Read that here. In fact, this post is salty.
Social skills debates can get brutal. When a minority keeps getting told they are wrong about their own source of pain, diplomacy at some point is not a priority.
Many of my readers at this point have started questioning social skills therapy in general, and that is awesome. Keep critically thinking. But the majority of SLPs still practice social skills therapy, and it is predominently done in middle school and high school due to the complex social dynamics that appear during this period. But you guys don’t know what it is like to be an autistic adolescent, so you don’t even know what you don’t even know. You are trying to modify the way a person interacts socially without having any sort of understanding that the person interacts with the world not in the way of a delayed neurotypical person, but in a normal way of an autistic person. But you don’t know what that could possibly mean.
It is also worth repeating that social cameoflauging causes suicide attempts in autistic people. Not correlated with—causes (Cassidy, S., Bradley, L., Shaw, R., & Baron-Cohen, S., 2018).
First, I am going to outline some examples of adolescent autistic students and their targeted ‘social behaviors’ to correct, expand upon, eliminate, etc. Then, I am going to switch tracks and dive into the actual issues with social skills therapy for this age range.
Peter is a 14 year old autistic kid who frequently raises his hand in history class, blurting out comments and, thus, interrupting the teacher and the class lecture. Sometimes he even corrects the teacher. His classmates find him annoying, and this bleeds into how he is treated in other classes and in lunch. His history teacher has an obvious distaste for him and has spoken to him after class regarding blurting out additional facts and correcting her, telling him these are unacceptable behaviors. But Peter does not seem to let that detract him from continuing. So, as an SLP, you view this pattern and develop a plan. He must not know how he is coming across. If he does know, then he is attention-seeking. You question him on how he thinks his peers think of him when he does these things. What context can help him figure this out? Others’ facial expressions? Where they are looking when this happens? Maybe if his peers show obvious signs of liking him like inviting him to group work or talking after class? He says he doesn’t have friends in school. You tell him it seems his peers don’t really like when he blurts out, and it is not okay to correct the teacher. You suggest that he raises his hand a few times each class, doesn’t call out, and stops correcting the teacher—he will then see that peers want to talk to him more and his teacher will respect him more. But now Peter keeps giving excuses. He says the teacher gets stuff wrong. He knows more than the teacher, anyway. He says whatever, this is dumb.
Jasmine is a 12 year old autistic kid who, since getting diagnosed with autism and social anxiety at age 10, has been in speech therapy to hopefully gain confidence in social situations She has come a long way from when you first started seeing her. Last year if you asked her a question, like “What’s your favorite class?” she would answer “I don’t know.” But now if you ask her the same question, she responds “Art class” and if you are lucky, she might add in a comment “We painted trees today.” This session you ask her about about her friends, Beverly and Sandy, and what they like to do together these days. Jasmine mentions they go shopping and go to Starbucks and just hang out. You respond that you like Starbucks and order a pumpkin spice latte this time of year. She does not say anything, so you prompt her to respond with her favorite drink at Starbucks, so she does, and you praise her for sharing, since that lets you know she is interested in the conversation. You ask if she and her friends have any plans this coming weekend, and Jasmine says “No.” Another pause. You prompt her to ask you if you have any weekend plans, which she does, and praise her because that shows that she is interested in you too. You respond that it’s your sister’s baby shower this weekend! Jasmine asks what that means (independently, YES!), you thank her for asking a question, and you say that your sister is having a baby soon and that a baby shower is a party to celebrate and give the expectant mother gifts. Jasmine responds “ok.” You tell her that normally when someone is having a baby, you say “Congratulations” to the expectant mother and the family to show that you are happy for them. She says “Congratulations” and you tell her “Thank you Jasmine!” There is another pause. You prompt her to start saying something, to continue the conversation—its her turn, and she has been doing so great so far! Jasmine says she doesn’t know. And oh—the bell rings, session is over. You tell her great job today and smile, and she smiles back and says “Thanks” and smiles on her way to class. She is such a sweet girl. You can’t wait to see how she does later this week in her small group session!
John is a 16 year old autistic kid who doesn’t talk much in school, but when he does, he is kind of a jerk. He sometimes interrupts other kids’ conversations by telling them to shut up. His mother reports that at home he needs constant prompts to do his homework and can be really selfish, only thinking about himself. John spends most of his time out of school on the computer. He has been in speech therapy for social skills for several years now and has either slowly met goals or made very little progress. It’s his first day of speech therapy for the year, and he sits down, looks away, and doesn’t say anything. You, the SLP, ask him if he knows why he is in speech therapy. He doesn’t answer. You tell him that by meeting his goals, like not interrupting conversations, respectfully greeting others, and saying respectful comments and questions in conversation, he will be done with speech. He doesn’t respond. You ask him how he thinks it makes people feel when he tells others to shut up. He shrugs and says he doesn’t care. You tell him that it is very rude to tell others to shut up, and it would just be easier for him to stop—plus, he would be done with speech. He says he doesn’t care, and, besides, everybody else is an idiot. Alright, you think, he is aware of the other person’s perspective, and he just doesn’t care. Hmmmmm, or maybe he doesn’t really understand it, and he is saying he doesn’t care as a defense mechanism….In any case, this route is going nowhere….So you then ask him about his interests. He lets out a big “uuuuuuugh.” After a minute of silence you mention that you know he likes spending time on his computer—what does he like doing on it? John responds “stuff.” You decide to let him go back to class and that you will ask colleagues for advice with this one. On his way out, he notices a bowl of Lifesavers you let your students take from, takes two fistfulls, stuffs them in his backpack, and leaves. You think this must be an example of the “selfishness” his mother metioned.
When SLPs do not have a thorough understanding of neurotypical social skills and the factors that translate into successful neurotypical social interactions, therapy plans often appear pretty superficial and rule-based. That’s why programs like Social Thinking® by Michelle Garcia Winner are so appealing—they focus on the autistic student thinking about what everybody else is thinking about based on a number of factors and, then, how to respond in a way that aligns with the social situation. At one point, several years ago, I too really liked how it addressed social skill “deficits” by using a cognitive-behavioral therapy approach. By changing your thought process about others and the context, and continuously becoming better at this skill, you can modify your emotional regulatory response and have better social outcomes. Fantastic.
But then I attended counseling. And heard from other autistic adults. And our stories are all the same, like I said in my previous blog post. Our negative emotions come from a lifetime of people pleasing, of studying others and imitating, of first thinking we were viewed one way but then painfully discovering our view of ourselves doesn’t match how others view us, of then changing our entire selves to fit each person and each situation, of then crashing, burning, hating ourselves while simultaneously not even knowing who our true selves even are. It is only sustainable for so long. Those of us who for whatever reason did not have social skills therapy in middle or high school learned to do it by ourselves.
So why do autistic people have complete disinterest in socializing and have such shit social skills?
Theory of Mind (ToM)—put simply, knowing that others’ thoughts and feelings are different than your own. Also, apparently, the root of all social communication difficulties in the autistic population (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). If autistic people do not have an understanding that people have different thoughts and feelings, surely that would lead to so many autism-related communication breakdowns—selfishness, lack of empathy, stubbornness, inflexibility, rigidity, etc. Aren’t lack of ToM-rooted social difficulties in autism exactly what you were taught in graduate school? I sure was.
Pssssst. Except in every study including the original 1985 ToM paper, some autistic people pass. How can be this be? Is ToM task success simply delayed in the autisitc population or are these children passing these tasks using a different mental processing strategy? And other populations fail ToM tasks: children under the age of 3, children with learning disabilities, and children born deaf in non-signing homes. But children in these populations form friendships in a neurotypically expected way, and 2 year olds talk about mental states (Scott & Baillargeon, 2017; Setoh et al., 2016)? Where you taught this in graduate school? No? You were taught ToM deficits are the primary model to explain autism?
It is tempting though, right? To hear this autistic kid go on and on and on and on about motorcycles and blame this behavior on his simply not having ToM. He is self-centered, really thinking his own thoughts are the center of it all. I mean, he doesn’t even care that you don’t care what he has to say! So now we have ToM being used to explain things way beyond the initial implications of the landmark 1985 paper and subsequent papers on the subject. Well-meaning researchers have created a monster, and this monster has SLPs and related professionals saying that autistic people don’t have empathy (“You can’t be autistic, Rachel—you are so empathetic!”) and are selfish (“He is so sweet, but he only cares about himself.”). These scientific findings have some sort of implication, though it is not clear exactly what. But society took them, ran with them, and suddenly autism includes traits of narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder. So as SLPs and related professionals, we gotta help the autistics develop ToM so they can stop saying rude things, monopolizing conversations, and show they care about others.
I am sorry—I just need to add how incredibily insulting it is to know that neurotypical SLPs genuinely think autistic people do not know that other people have thoughts and emotions. Like all autistics think that every person out there thinks just like us, and that is the only possible state of existing. I kid you not—I once heard an SLP attempt to explain why her 7 year old autistic student did not answer WH- questions with this reasoning: “If he thinks that his own thoughts are the same as everybody else’s thoughts, then he is not answering these questions because he thinks it is meaningless to answer a question when all our thoughts are the same.” No, that’s not really how it works.
However, now the research is turning. There is sufficient reason to believe that YOU do not understand that autistic people have their own distinct thoughts and ideas. And these thoughts and ideas are equally valid as neurotypical thoughts and ideas. But because they are different, they lead to communication breakdows between neurotypes. I mean, autistic people are fine communicating with each other—in fact, they prefer it (Crompton, et al., 2020; Granieri, et al., 2020). So, really, what is going on with YOU guys for not being able to communicate well with US?
Oh, is that an accusatory way of looking at things? That it’s all the neurotypicals’ fault? It must be very hard to hear that your social skills are impacting the way you communicate with autistic people. Perhaps you need some social skills therapy. I am an autistic SLP, and I have appointments available!
But okay, fine, let’s say the underlying theory between the communication differences among neurotypes doesn’t impact therapy practice all that much. After middle school and high school, there is the real world out there, and autistic teens are going to grow up to be autistic adults in a neurotypical world. So they gotta know how to handle navigating social dynamics of having a job, forming and sustaining relationships, emotional regulation to deal with difficult events, etc. And in the meantime, these kids are interrupting teachers and being rude to peers! Or maybe some of them are pretty sweet kids, but they overshare and make others uncomfortable. Plus, they are so desperate for friends! These autistic kids are frequently the victims of bullying, so we gotta help them not be such outcasts. Or maybe the autistic kids are being bullied, yeah, but, come on, they are egging it on.
Back to the examples of the autistic teens from before. Same kids, similar sequence of events, but now their autistic ideas, thoughts, and feelings are being described instead of just some unknown process attributed to lack of ToM:
Peter is a 14 year old autistic kid whose specialized interest is American History. He has been excitedly waiting until this year to not only possibly learn new things, but show his friends and his teacher just how much he already knows! He would never admit this, and might not even realize it himself, but he wants to impress others with his knowledge of his favorite thing. He could talk about it all day if left up to him—and he gets so happy that it’s almost euphoric, talking louder and faster, and his heart beats fast, and he subtley flaps his hands, and his body feels tingly. So, of course, when the teacher states a fact, and he knows some additional information, he excitedly wants to share it with the class. In fact, he gets so excitedly wrapped up in the details that he can’t even really focus on how his classmates or his teacher react. Sometimes the teacher gets facts wrong though….this is very disappointing to him. I mean, she should be the expert, and experts don’t get facts wrong. Each and every fact is super important and has critical implications for the flow of the events that took place in the United States leading until this very point in time. Peter corrects her when she gets things wrong, but one day he got in trouble because he told the truth when she said the wrong thing and for some reason she gets upset when that happens. He was told to stop correcting her and telling the truth in class. So this sucks, and so now American History is the worst. It sucks when the thing you highly anticipate ends up being awful. Peter went from elation at the thought of American History class to nagging, lingering disappointment, and he feels that same exact feeling every time it’s time for that class. And then a few days later she pronouned a Sergeant’s name wrong. She was wrong. He knows more than she does. His heart is beating fast, he feels tingly again, but also sorta itchy this time—he fidgets in his seat and then shoots his hand up in the air and blurts out “Actually…!” Ok, now this speech lady is asking him all these questions and doing these worksheets about his friends and teacher in history class. This is the worst, and that class is the worst, and this lady is making him talk about if his friends invite him to groupwork or talk after class. No…they don’t, but they don’t even care if the teacher is wrong, so they don’t share the same values as him anyway. Plus, he has his best friend Eric who is 12, and they get along even though Eric is more into European History. Now this speech lady asks him how he thinks the teacher feels when he corrects her. Well, for some reason she is mad, but she should be thankful, because he is helping her, because he knows more than she does! The speech lady tells him that the teacher is mad and embarrassed because the corrections make her look bad to her students. But that’s not fair! Peter feels mad when she gets the facts wrong! The speech lady says it is rude to correct teachers—they are authority figures, and it disrupts the flow of the class. But President Trump is an authority figure, and members of the Congress and Senate correct him and disrupt him when they think he is wrong! And Peter’s mom has been talking a lot about how journalists get away with “fake news” and how they should only report the truth. That’s what he is doing! Whatever, this is dumb.
Jasmine is a 12 year old autistic kid who is mostly quiet in school. She hates herself, but sometimes she doesn’t. Like when her teacher tells her she did a good job or if someone at school talks to her or asks her a question. This past summer Beverly and Sandy started talking to her because they like some of the same bands. Sometimes they hang out, but only, like, if Beverly and Sandy have asked their other friends. Jasmine has had friends before, but usually they suddenly go from being nice to saying really mean things, like calling her annoying or dumb, and she knows they aren’t being sarcastic because their faces look angry and not happy like they do when people are sarcastic. When this happens, Jasmine locks herself in her room and bites her arm and headbangs against her pillow so her parents don’t hear. But one day her parents caught her, and now she is on anxiety medication. It helps, sorta, but she still hates herself a lot of times. Last weekend Beverly, Sandy, and Jasmine hung out at Sandy’s place—Jasmine doesn’t like going to other people’s houses much because people’s houses all smell different, and sometimes they are dirty and sometimes they are clean. But she agreed to go anyway because they are her friends. They are in Sandy’s bedroom, looking at youtube videos, and Sandy shows them a video she says is really funny. The two friends laugh, but Jasmine doesn’t really get it but smiles anyway. Beverly exclaims that Jasmine never finds anything funny—she’s such buzzkill! But, really, she is just kidding, stop taking everything so seriously, Jasmine! The girls order pizza, but Jasmine gags with melted cheese but doesn’t say anything, deciding to take a few bites and swallow through the gags. Sandy mentions a girl a grade below them and calls her a whore. Jasmine is shocked. How could a girl that young, an 11 year old, be a whore? How can she be prostituting herself? It doesn’t make sense. Jasmine asks if she is really a whore. Sandy says ooooooh yeah and starts naming some boys in the school that girl has hooked up with. Jasmine then clarifies—wait, ok, so she’s not really a whore, like getting paid or whatever. Sandy and Beverly are silent for some time and then tell Jasmine she is so retarted, but they love her and start laughing. Jasmine is confused for a second but decides they aren’t laughing at her because they just said they love her. Her eyes start to water but she doesn’t understand why, she is having fun with her friends! Jasmine goes to the bathroom and bites her wrist really hard to stop from crying. She is in there for a while, and when she gets out Beverly says she assumed Jasmine was puking her pizza since she is so bulimic—omg, it was totally a joke! Whatever, Jasmine should really take it as a compliment anyway since she is so skinny. Jasmine smiles faintly and says “Thanks” and remembers from speech class that when someone compliments you, you should try to compliment them back, so she says she likes Beverly’s hair, even though it’s just okay, but she had to say something. That evening her mom picks her up and asks how things went, and Jasmine says good because they were good. And, really, she just needs to stop being so sensitive, god, she hopes they couldn’t tell she was gagging through her pizza. And she should have at least tried to laugh at the video because her friends were laughing. She replays these events in her head all night, and then the next morning, and then finds the video online and rewatches it again and again and again and again, probably 10 times, and then she texts Sandy that she watched the video again and finds it funny. Jasmine hopes she doesn’t mess up having friends this time.
John is a 16 year old autistic kid who every single morning begs his mom not to go to school. He says he doesn’t need high school anyway—he is going to just go to tech school when he graduates or whatever. Every day when he gets to school he sees the same groups of students together near the front entrance—the only way to get in because all other doors are always locked. He walks really quickly so they don’t see him. Oone time he walked by, and at the exact same time that group of kids was laughing, so it must have been at him. Back in middle school one of the kids, Kyle, spit on him in the hallway, and then John punched him really hard and got suspended. So John walks by this same group of kids, and their talking is so loud and high pitched, and John yells a “SHUT THE FUCK UP” but walks ahead quickly enough to evade any teachers. He then notices his fists are so tight that his nails are digging into his palms, and he is sweaty. Once in class, John pull his hoodie over his head, and the teacher reminds him, yet again, to pull his hoodie down—he always forgets, he didn’t even realize he pulled his hoodie head up. The same thing happens again, right before leaving class, because now his teacher is suddenly scolding him, and he realizes his hoodie is up yet again. God, why can’t he remember to keep it down? He feels so dumb as he goes to the next class. The hallways are really crowded and loud and he tries to move quickly. This class is math, and he hates math—can’t get it all straight—and he knows he is in the “dumb kid math class” and still can’t do it. Oh, time for speech. God, so stupid. The speech ladies, year after year—and a different one each year— keep telling him to be respectful. Maybe if he treated others better, they would treat him better. But that’s dumb. Back when he did sometimes try to do the things the speech lady said, he still didn’t get picked for groupwork. He was still alone during lunch. The speech lady once encouraged him to ask to sit by someone during lunch, which he did, but the other kid sorta mumbled no, he was saving the seat for someone. So speech this year will be no different. This is dumb. Hate this. Hate this. Hate this. Oh—cool—Lifesavers. John takes two fistfulls and puts them in his backpack because he likes sucking on hard candy—better than the strings on his hoodie. Once school ends, and he is home, he heads straight to his computer. He has several internet friends on his favorite online forum. It’s easy to talk to them because they all share the same interest. Talking to them through messaging and forums is so nice—time goes by without him realizing it, but then his mom interrupts him by shouting at him to do his homework. Sometimes this results in a meltdown because its nearly impossible to go from meaningful social interaction to focusing on homework. About a year ago when she shouted at him to start his homework he got so upset that he threw his laptop on the ground, breaking it, and then he couldn’t talk to his best friends for a few months.
Example #1: Peter has a strong sense of justice, like many autistic people. It’s likely why he is drawn to American History, something he is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about. He is incredibly detail oriented and sees how the details fit together to form a bigger picture. So of course it is frustrating that people tell him to just stop sharing his knowledge and just let the wrong facts slip out. For him, it is catastrophic. He knows he shouldn’t correct the teacher, but he perseverates and feels choked and strangled. He doesn’t want attention—by this point he knows that he attracts negative attention—and he doesn’t really care if he hangs out with people in that class. He has lost respect for his teacher. So if you, the SLP, want to truly help him, you need to understand how deeply, truly, important his specialized interest is to him, the heartbreak of the letdown, and that social rules, particularly those regarding responding to authority, are inconsistent, often broken, and some people get away with it and some people don’t. He understands the perspective of others in this situation in theory, but its hard for him to truly buy into it, especially if no one sees his perspective.
Example #2: Jasmine has no idea of what a healthy friendship means. She also has no idea of what healthy, realistic conversation looks like among friends. Her real life friends say things, and she can’t tell if they are making fun of her or not. She has learned in speech that she needs to show interest in the other person, and she can do this by asking questions or sharing something related about herself. However, she doesn’t want to be annoying, something she has internalized from past failed friendships. It’s hard for her to know exactly what to say at all. Speech therapy conversations bare little resemblence to the conversations of actual people, especially middle school girls. Jasmine likes speech therapy though, because the SLP is really nice and praises her when she keeps conversations going and can think of a question to ask, even though Jasmine doesn’t really care about the things they talk about. Jasmine is, unfortunately, learning to people-please. Always pleasing others is an unrealistically high expectation, especially if she can’t really gauge when others truly like her. Jasmine replays social situations in her head, studying them, in the hopes of doing better next time. All of these dynamics are setting her up to continue to self-injurious behavior when she, inevitably, does not please the other person.
Example #3: John is the type of kid I commonly see discussed among Facebook Autism Mom and Facebook SLP middle/high school groups. Here is this kid—he doesn’t care at all and is making it very clear. People say he is rude, obnoxious, and only cares about himself. But really, John is demonstating a natural and expected response to being bullied and the trauma of being bullied. How long has he been bullied? Likely most of his life, as long as he hasn’t really “fit in.” He has executive functioning difficulties and can be impulsive, lack initiation, have a singular mindset, and has difficulty shifting attention between tasks. Is he lazy? No. Is he acting like a jerk? Absolutely. He knows it, and he just doesn’t care. John is constantly in “fight” mode in school, on high alert, his sensory system extremely dysregulted, and ready to be difficult for the sake of being difficult. Besides, he has friends online, and for autistic people, online friendships are often far deeper than “real life” friendships. He has found a safe haven from an educational sytem that has failed him and labeled him as this obnoxious loser. John doesn’t need social skills therapy—he needs to spend time with an adult who isn’t constantly trying to change him.
I just described a series of anxious autistic adolescents each receiving social skills therapy. Some therapy focuses on the autistic kid improving perspective taking skills in order to decrease problematic behavior. Some therapy is focused on contributing more to conversations in hopes of gaining friendships and building confidence. Some therapy is focused on looking around for clues and context to help figure out what others think of the autistic person. Some therapy is giving rules to follow for some immediate social success that will hopefully boost confidence.
Each one of the autistic students is experiencing emotional and sensory dysregulation. In fact, often they don’t even realize what they are feeling. Or even sense what their bodies are doing. Is there a goal for that?
Each one of these autistic students has some difficulty in understanding the intent of neurotypicals. But each neurotypical they encounter has significant difficulty in understand the intent of the autistic students. Is there a goal that focuses on mutual understanding instead of putting all of the burden on the autistic person?
Some autistic students find social skills irritating and don’t really “get” it because they didn’t do anything wrong to begin with. Some autistic students embrace neurotypical social skills therapy. They aim to people-please. And some autistic students have lost all hope of being successful, believed in, or liked, or, hell, tolerated at school.
The reason this blog post has taken so long to write is because of the complex nature of the subject and the emotional space it holds. I described three kids with unique challenges. Do I think correcting the teacher and blurting things out in class is ok? No. Nor do I think blatantly disrespecting everyone you contact is ok. That’s gotta stop. But unless you truly understand the trauma of being autistic in a neurotypical world, you are just going to cause more trauma in the end. And unless you hold the autistic point of view as equally valid as the neurotypical point of view, you are getting nowhere meaningful and long-lasting with these kids, at least in a positive way. Peter is clearly bright, enthusiastic, eager to share and learn, and that should be fostered. Perhaps he could join debate. Perhaps he could make a list in class of things his teacher got wrong and give it to her at the end of each month—that way, she won’t make the same mistakes teaching the class next year. Jasmine is eager to please, clearly, and this can easily be taken advantage of. Perhaps teach how neurotypicals use sarcasm and humor in both positive and negative ways, as she seems to be struggling with that. Perhaps gently empower her to advocate for herself. John is angry, exactly what you’d expect from a kid who feels emotions very deeply and has been an outcast for most of his life, but he might not know he is angry—he just has negative feelings that burst due to his impusivity. Perhaps describe a situation where you impusively made a big mistake out of bad feelings, and describe how your body felt and the emotion it connected with. Perhaps state that you were right to feel angry, and if John feels angry, he is right to feel angry too. Be silent. Then say that you noticed he took a bunch of Lifesavers, and that you are out of cherry flavor which is your favorite, can he check and see if he still has one?
Autistic teenagers aren’t lazy or selfish or lacking empathy. Before going in and assigning causality to these kids’ behaviors, maybe you should consider their perspective. They can’t really say it? Help them voice it. It is the only way to break down the harmful stereotypes that many SLPs themselves internalize about their autistic students. Empower your autistic kids instead of training them to perform.
EDIT: Some people have correctly informed me that I have provided good discussion of what NOT to do, but very little of what to actually do. It is hard to specifically advise. A lot of my work with autistic kids is based on shared experience and intuition—I understand a reaction because my reaction would be pretty similar, or there was a time it was pretty similar. I recall emotional memories very strongly, as if I am actually experiencing the exact situation, and this can be extremely helpful when working, but also has the potential to be devastating, emotionally. However, all that being said, there are resources that I use in addition to resources that I think would be helpful to NT SLPs just diving into neurodiversity-aligned practices.
http://autismlevelup.com/
Dr. Amy Laurent and Dr. JÂcqûelyn Fede have created a framework that really dives into many aspects of the autistic experience with a focus on self-advocacy.
https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product-category/online-courses/
Kelly’s work on interoception is groundbreaking. I use it for myself frequently. Many autistic people, as well as other people, can’t attach bodily sensations to physical needs or emotions—if they can even feel the bodily sensations at all. Imagine trying to regulate when all you feel is some type of vague discomfort but cannot attach it meaningfully to any body part, physical need, or emotion!
https://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Self-Advocacy-ISA-Curriculum-Self-Advocates/dp/1934575402
Self-advocacy, self-advocacy, self-advocacy. Best suited for older kids.
https://therapistndc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IEP-Make-overs.pdf and https://therapistndc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Part-2-IEP-Make-overs.pdf
The Therapist Neurodiversty collective (https://therapistndc.org/) has a lot of great resources, but these infographics are goal-specific, for those of you asking about goals.
References
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?. Cognition, 21(1), 37-46.
Cassidy, S., Bradley, L., Shaw, R., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2018). Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults.
Crompton, C. J., Ropar, D., Evans-Williams, C. V., Flynn, E. G., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2019). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism, 1362361320919286.
Granieri, J. E., McNair, M. L., Gerber, A. H., Reifler, R. F., & Lerner, M. D. (2020). Atypical social communication is associated with positive initial impressions among peers with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 1362361320924906.
Scott, R. M., & Baillargeon, R. (2017). Early false-belief understanding. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(4), 237-249.
Setoh, P., Scott, R. M., & Baillargeon, R. (2016). Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(47), 13360-13365.
Winner, M. G. (n.d.). Socialthinking - Social Thinking. Socialthinking.Com. https://www.socialthinking.com
